Omaha Theater

1506 Douglas Street,

Omaha,
NE68102

Omaha Opera House should be added as an AKA name in 1939.
I added an April 28, 1939 photo of the premiere of “Union Pacific” at the then Omaha Opera House to the Photo’s Section.
Photo & copy courtesy of Richard Thies‎.

I last saw this theater in 1955, when I was agout 16 years. The interior was in neoclassival, “Adam” style, in colors of Pompeian red, moss green and cream. Very restained and rather elegant. At that time the organ was still in the pit, though the grille openings originally draped with curtains had been plastered over and painted. Some said that the organ originally spoke throught a “mixing” chamber from the ceiling, though I doubt this very much. The sight-lines in this theater wer pehnomenal. From the last row on the orchestra level one felt as though one could reach out and touch the stage. There were two balconies, neither very deep. The house was usually quoted as seating 2200.

Mormonpreacher, you think like I do. I would love to see Omaha’s old “theater row” recreated. The problem is, there was a reason those buildings were knocked down. They weren’t viable from a business standpoint. How would someone make a new Omaha Theater work?

The UP Center is located on 15th & Douglas. The Rialto Theater was located on the corner and it showed movies. Later the building contained the men’s store Tully’s. The only movie I saw at the Omaha was “Jaws”. Now that entire block is a parking garage. Downtown Omaha is now just a mass of parking lots & parking garages. I’ve lived here all my life and am very disappointed with the lack of historical preservation and seeing memorable buildings being demolished.

According to the WPA Guide to Omaha, there was a theater on the east side of this block, where the UP Center is now located (formerly a parking lot, directly north of the library). Am I mistaken? And if it did exist, did it ever show movies, or just live shows?

Here’s a thought that I’ve had for some time, after researching at the Omaha city planning department. I discovered that the blue-prints for the World/Omaha Theater are still down there, permanently preserved on micro-film.

The lot it sat on is still only occupied by a parking garage, and not an excessively expensive, valuable highrise office building.

Wouldn’t it be incredible if money could be raised and support garnered from some quarter to recreate this wonderful building?

I’ve thought alot about this kind of stuff. I think there’s a real, viable solution to the problem that provided the inspiration for the creation of this website. The Europeans have spent billions of dollars to recreate their historic, bombed out cities. Why could we as American lovers of architecture not start our own movement to begin recreating and rebuilding our own urban-renewal destroyed cities?

Back in the 70’s when I was a small child me and my mom were downtown doing some shopping at Brandeis dept. store and I asked her if we could see a movie at the Omaha Theater, she said that there had been a shooting there and it wasn’t safe…I’m not sure if what she was telling me then was true or not

In the 1970s the Omaha Theater started primarily showing what were (and are) known as “blaxploitation” movies (such as “Shaft”, “Superfly”, “Blacula”, and many lesser similar works.) Occasionally they’d show kung-fu or ultra-obscure horror movies, but it more or less became known as “the black theater” around town.

I think the demise of the “blaxploitation” subgenre in the late ‘70s contributed heavily to the demise of the Omaha Theater.

My name is Kent. I grew up in Omaha, and can still remember, just barely, the beautiful old theaters and department stores which were once downtown. One of the things I remember is the World Theater, which was torn down when I was six years old.

My mother took me see 101 Dalmatians at the World Theater, and I believe we also went to Snow White there. Even as a little boy I thought it was such a beautiful place. I can remember seeing the 15th Street wall collapse during demolition, and how sad I was that such a wonderful place was destroyed.